[pct-l] PCT Origins

Subject: [pct-l] PCT Origins

From: atjulliard at yahoo.com (Alan Julliard)

Date: Sat Dec 11 00:01:48 2004

Greg,
Add Denise Myers to the 1974 list. Her big smiling
Joni Mitchell-like picture graces page 25 of "The
Pacific Crest Trail" by National Geographic, published
early 1975. I got my copy 2 weeks before I left for
my thru-hike and her face is engraved in my memory.
Ben Schifrin was on the trail in 1973-4. He was on
this list at one time (and maybe still is).
In 1975, a woman named Terry (can't remember her
last name) hiked the whole trail with Jim Podlesney.
Chuck Long, who hiked the trail in 1975 and published
the first how-to for the PCT, says that 27 hiked it
that year. I can account for 18 but he contacted most
of us to add any words of wisdom.
I don't feel like a pioneer, just old...
Alan
=======================================================
So the earliest women to have hiked the trail
according to notes given to me
by Bill Jennings, unofficial PCT historian exquisit,
are;
Mugs Knezacek in 1971 (if "Mugs" is a woman)
Mary Carstens in 1972
Jean Beck in 1974
1972 was quite a banner year for early thru-hikers.
Apparently 9 people
thru-hiked and two others hiked about half of it.
Their names, crusted with
crester gold and held up to the gloried heights of
Forester Pass are;
Mary Carstens
Butch Ferrand
Bill Goddard
Toby Heaton
Wayne Martin
David Odell
Jeff Smuckler
Richard Watson
Henry Wilds
Wader Holder and Dan Torpey apparently hiked half in
'72 and the rest in '73,
and then thru-hiked in 1974!
Only 5 apparently thru-hiked in 1973,
9 in '74,
7 in '75,
6 in '76
and a whopping 25 in 1977.
Unknown and unsung are the multitudes of section
hikers who completed the
trail over several of these early years. Their
accomplishments are no less
heralded and no less personally rewarding than those
few who thru-hiked.
These are the pioneers whose footsteps you aspiring
hikers all follow in.
They, like me, are now in middle age and wondering if
the opportunity will ever
again present itself. Know your passions and jump at
the opportunity to do
this.
Greg
* Previous message: [pct-l] PCT Origins
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Read only the mail you want - Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard.
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail